Turtle Rescue!

Playing outside with the kids and a neighbor girl yesterday afternoon, I noticed a car stop in the middle of the road. A woman popped out and ran around to the front of the car, where she looked down into the road, reached down, and then jumped up as if shocked. She lingered for a second before going slowly back to her car and driving off. Watching this odd scene, I thought, sadly, that there must be some nearly-dead animal in the road. 


A few minutes later, glancing back at the site of this scene, I was surprised to see a little animal head pop up over the edge of the road, followed by the distinctively lumbering dome of a turtle. A few seconds later, the girls and I were over there, admiring this big green terrapin - probably a female snapping turtle (if size and surliness were any indication):

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We watched for quite a while. "Yertle" - as Julia, She Who Names Everything, dubbed it, of course - eventually overcame her* shyness and resumed a plodding course for the pond she could surely smell a few hundred feet away. The girls all shrieked when she first stuck out her head and blinked at us, and gave her plenty of room when he started moving.


Unfortunately, there was a solid row of townhouses between Yertle and the pond, not to mention a busy street. One thing led to another, and soon enough a nice neighbor had put Yertle in a box to ferry her to the pond. He tipped Yertle out of the box a few feet from the water's edge.

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The turtle sniffed a couple times, then lunged into the water, took a couple powerful strokes to get away from shore, and dove into the murk. I hope she's happy in our little pond! Maybe she'll meet last fall's friend, the Tiger salamander.


* I'm guessing the turtle was female because this article implies that female snapping turtles migrate around now to find new homes.


Forecast: Significant blowing and drifting, with the possibility of heavy accumulation in rural areas.